With the help of corpus tool---LancsBox 6.0, the aim is to compare the characteristics of language usage and analyze qualitatively and quantitatively cultural differences between Chinese and American from the perspective of cultural dimensions theory and modes of thinking. It is found that China Daily prefers to place greater emphasis on high power distance values, a culture of collectivism, high uncertainty avoidance and long-term orientation focusing on the future, while the New York Times tends to pay more attention to low power distance values, a culture of individualism, low uncertainty avoidance and short-term orientation focusing on the past. Moreover, differences mainly lie in different modes of thinking. Overall, these findings are instructive to the ways of media disseminates climate change information, to the analysis of news texts and to the comparison of cultural differences between Chinese and American from cultural dimensions theory.

Keywords: cultural dimensions theory; comparative study; climate change news; cultural differences